Serious W wind in the forecast for tomorrow. Monday is a difficult day for me to skip work, but I’ll try to escape at some point in the morning. Any suggestions for sailing spot? MC and Wolf come to mind.

If you can't find any good local launches for Monday, either Lake Geneva or Tenney Park in Madison would be a great option. Lake Geneva should be very good if it's straight west. If it looks like WNW, I'll go to Madison.

I know these aren't terribly close for you, but sometimes it's fun to sail from new launches. The forecast is looking like it should be a fun day!

Thanks Jacob, I appreciate your input! I absolutely agree with you...nowadays. Lack of good small board and adequate sails used to keep me sailing exclusively on Wolf lake and the occasional trip usually ended up being a disappointment. All this changed this year and I believe that because of the trips to new places that I did my skills improved noticeably together with my general understanding of the sport. Those little adventures have been very valuable to me regardless what conditions I’ve encountered on them.
I’m still not sure if I will be able to escape work tomorrow at all, but I told Alan that if I’m able to I’ll join him at Michigan City-a place that keeps on eluding me. I’ll be glad to sail with you and Patrick sometime again up north.

Any tips on what type of gear people use as temperatures drop? Is 4:3 wetsuit enough? I heard you add air and water temp together and if above 100 your ok, but if below then might consider special gear... any tips?

A 4/3 wetsuit would definitely not be enough for me in 40 degree air temps with coolish water temps. In this weather, I'll wear a 5 mm drysuit with a thermal layer underneath, 5 mm boots, 3 mm mitts and a full hood. For me, the hands are definitely the weak link. It's really hard for me to find gloves/mitts that keep you warm enough without causing excessive forearm pump. A lot of guys cut the palms out of their gloves, but I like the extra warmth of a full palm.

5mm drysuit would be awesome. I wish I had one of those ION Fuse drysuits , that would be the ultimate cold solution. I used my 4/3 NP skin type wetsuit last year and this spring, but I’m layering it underneath with 3/2 hooded vest and 1.5 neo shorts, also open palm mitts and another system of 2 pairs of booties where I use a pair of long Atans as socks underneath a pait of oversized NP summer booties /works great/. I think they started importing those Ianovative wetsuits now that include a tube system to breath warm air on your hands. Pouring warm water in your wetsuit during breaks helps a lot I read somewhere.

Oh boy, that was though! Alan, Mike and me were the only windsurfers there, which raised the red flags right from the start. I rigged a 4.6 Revo and my Kode 94 with a tri fin set of MFC TF 20/11. My buddies rigged similar kits and off we went. The shore break was easy to go through, but then me and Mike found ourselves underpowered and the very strong current drifted us way downwind beyond the point of recovery. I had to pay for my tactical mistakes with a long walk backwards carrying my stuff and while trying a few reaches now and then trying to make ground upwind without success . By the time I was back that 4.6 has started to feel overpowered. Overall not much to get excited about besides the wild beauty of the beach this time of the year. It was cold but not too bad, I was fine with my 4/3 NP Nexus and a layer underneath. What absolutely turned me off though is the lack of grass areas for rigging so we had to do it in the middle of the parking lot with the wind blowing insane amounts of sand all over my things and inside my car /which I’m working with/ so there will be a lot of cleaning/vacuuming this evening. With all this sand blown all over my car I think I may have to replace the air filter prematurely.
PS: if you are wondering why Im not posting anything about the waves, it’s because I took little advantage of them, doing stupid , bumpy, long reaches trying to recover upwind ground . It was a fruitless, frustrating labour -nasty current. Encountered impressive swell maybe as high as 7’ !

The picture makes a nice lock screen wallpaper though

Wow Ady, what an awesome shot!, Something about it is just so surreal!!! Sounds like you had a rough day but for me that picture would've made it all worth it.

Thanks! It can pass for a painting from a distance and I took it with my IPhone on top of that!

Gorgeous pic Ady. Those phone cameras are surprisingly good. The photographer has something to do with that as well! Perfect light, composition and crop.